A little over two weeks ago I came across a spirited conversation between two Bloody Elbow writers and Jason Genet, manager of UFC heavyweight and current TUF coach Shane Carwin. Apparently Carwin’s opposing coach and December 15th opponent Roy Nelson along with others had released a statement saying that Carwin had agreed to participate in VADA testing before the pair met on the Ultimate Fighter Finale.

Brookhouse published an article which you can read here with a headline of: “Jason Genet’s handling of Shane Carwin and VADA situation provides example of poor MMA fighter management,” it immediately caught my attention. I read through the tweets between Brookhouse, Genet and Bloody Elbow writer Tim Burke which you can read here. I’ve worked with Genet in the past and figured I’d get in touch with him to hear his side of the story.

Genet explained to me in great detail what has taken place after Nelson’s last fight in May, through the time Carwin agreed to coach on TUF with Nelson and on to the articles released by Bloody Elbow. I am reporting to you Genet’s thoughts and if Brookhouse and Burke would like to have their side of the story heard I offer them the same opportunity. All I want is for the sport and its athletes to prosper and having fighters cheat and/or create controversy between one another will only hinder that. I am going to split this up into a minimum of two pierces as it’s a lot to digest!

Here is where my conversation with Genet begins:

It’s important to follow the whole time line. Let’s start in June of 2012 when Roy Nelson had his last fight against Dave Herman at UFC 146. Nelson made a comment during his post-fight interview in which he said he’s anti performance enhancing drugs. He was always willing to pay for additional testing in his next fight which I thought was great, he wasn’t grandstanding, and he was merely trying to share what his position was. He said if he couldn’t find sponsors or have the UFC pay for the testing he would do so out of his own pocket.

Fast forward to July of 2012 we received a phone call from Joe Silva offering Shane the Ultimate Fighter gig against Nelson. We accepted as did Roy and then at the end of July the UFC made the official announcement. Around that time VADA becomes one of Roy’s sponsors after they had heard his speech, they told him he didn’t need to pay for it out of his own pocket.

During this time a blog is posted on VADA’s website which they claim was written by an outside source and then posted by an intern. The blog said something along the lines that the only thing Carwin could teach these kids was how to cheat. It was brought to my attention by a fan and I contacted VADA and I told them it was at the least defaming and libelous. I asked them to not only remove the post, but to also print a retraction. That was my very first attempt at contacting VADA and they never responded.

At the UFC Fan Expo Roy is booked for an appearance and jumps into a van with his wife Jesse and Shane Carwin. They were in a van alone for 15 minutes and Roy says nothing. He never mentioned VADA or tried to sell Shane on it, there was complete silence. Shane said it was awkward; especially considering Roy spends a lot of time on the internet talking crap about him specifically.

Leading into the show Roy is on an MMA radio show and states he wants Kurt Angle as one of his coaches. The same Kurt Angle who is the K.A., on the Applied Pharmacy case from 2006. He also wants BALCO owner Victor Conte and Mo Lawal, who is currently serving a suspension for testing positive for PED’s as coaches on his staff. He continued to make a lot of pro-Vada statements and I knew that’s where he was heading. I had made the decision at that time that VADA wasn’t going to happen. To do the things that VADA had done really brought their independence into question, testing like this is very important. The company overseeing it shouldn’t have a beef with one of the people they are testing.

I had held out hope that VADA would reach out and apologize for their actions, etc. We arrived to begin filming the show in mid-August. Again, Roy never discussed VADA with Shane; all he wanted to discuss was UFC contracts. While the show was being taped Roy did not make any statements to Shane regarding VADA. Not one time in 6 weeks did Roy mention VADA, but as soon as the show is filmed he brings it up.

I was contacted by Damon Martin around the 10th or 11th of October asking me if I had seen the press release that was distributed which had Roy saying he had invited Shane to participate in VADA testing. Meanwhile neither Shane nor I had ever heard from Roy Nelson concerning VADA testing. I was then informed that Roy and Conte had tweeted that we had accepted and The Score is reporting that during a press meet and greet that Roy took part of while he was in Canada that we had accepted. Once I denied those reports it created a lot of phone calls throughout members of the media who wanted to know the truth.

Bloody Elbow didn’t reach out even though they had the ability to because we have long standing issues with one another. That evening I received an email from Mike Kogan, who I don’t know, but he cc’ed Roy and various member of the media. He attached the VADA application and information about VADA which is available on their website. I ignored his email, but it created another rash of phone calls because of who was attached to the email. I don’t know if he’s representing Roy or he could just be a guy trying to place himself in the middle of the situation.

I then received an email from Margaret Goodman from VADA and it basically invited Shane to participate in testing, it laid down the time line in which they sponsored Roy and explained the system. She also said everyone has the right to choose to participate and if you don’t it doesn’t mean that we think you’re guilty. It would’ve been great to have back in June. She mentioned something about the post about Shane and that the intern responsible had been let go. They still never issued a public apology or a public retraction.

A private apology in the same email in which you’re inviting us to participate in VADA testing after Roy and Conte had already lied to the media and on Twitter, doesn’t mean much. Regardless of what her email said they were trying to bully my client into taking the test, which is a contradiction of what Roy had said back in June. We’re ok with WADA level testing; we’re just not ok with VADA overseeing the testing. There are other agencies available and yes there are costs associated with the testing, but that shouldn’t be a problem for Roy. He already said he would pay for it.

I explained the reasons why we have questions about VADA’s integrity to Dr. Goodman and she came back to me with some compelling information that I was unaware of. I also took it upon myself to go out and educate myself more because quite honestly the remarks I made about VADA to Steven Marrocco were ignorant. If I’m not aware of what they do, how can I claim what they do is bad. I was upset over how they attacked my client, but I don’t know for a fact that they are corrupt. VADA should want to abstain if they want to be a true independent organization. At the end of the day VADA is responsible for the actions of their employees, interns and other members of their organization.

VADA should’ve offered to pay for the testing and have it done by another company, the costs associated with the testing are going to be cut in half because we aren’t looking to have Roy tested. No one is questioning Roy on whether he is on PED’s; he’s the one with the questions. I explained my stance to Dr. Goodman who immediately began educating me on what VADA’s testing procedures are. I think their approach throughout all of this has been bad, but I think they have a responsibility at this point to say publicly what they have said to me and that is they don’t condone the type of behavior that led to the blog about Shane being posted by an intern on their website.

We are not anti-testing, we are 100% OK with WADA level testing, but we just don’t feel comfortable having VADA handling those tests. I made the decision to say no to VADA and Shane supports my decision. There is a huge conflict here and that came about because VADA is sponsoring Roy. They are an independent company and they should want to stay independent. Roy sent me a tweet saying he would look into other alternatives. The thing with Roy is you never know if he’s serious or not. We are not saying VADA doesn’t work we are just saying no to VADA in this case, if they wanted to work with Chris Camozzi on his next fight I wouldn’t have a problem with that.

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